But spending 860 million rupees ($16 million) of public money to renovate her Lucknow home? This is what emerged from a Right-to-Information request filed by a rival politician of Ms. Mayawati. She stepped down as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh earlier this year.

Here is what we know about her residence, according to reports: there’s a six-room, single-story bungalow and a 14-bedroom guesthouse sprawled over five acres of land in Lucknow, the capital of U.P. For Ms. Mayawati, security is clearly a top priority: the residence has tall boundary walls, bullet-proof windows, and a CCTV network. She loves pink marble and statues, so there’s plenty of both – including a statue of herself.

Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Pictured, Kumari Mayawati.

There are many other ways Ms. Mayawati could’ve spent her $16 million. Here are a few things she could’ve done with money:

And named it after herself. The island costs just $12 million, which would have left her some extra cash to boost security, perhaps by hiring naval patrols. The island has the added bonus of being rather hilly, allowing her to prop up a statue of herself Rio de Janeiro style.

2. Bought 32 Ferraris.

That is, if the luxury carmaker liked her enough. Ferrari is famously picky about who they agree to sell their cars to. In India, they come with a starting price of $490,000 for the California model.

3. Bought 1,600 real elephants.

Elephants are the symbol of Ms. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. During her time in office, she erected plenty of statues of elephants, including 24 pink sandstone ones in a park in Noida and five marble ones on the premises of her Lucknow home. While it’s difficult to get accurate estimates on the cost of elephants, the starting price is roughly $10,000.

4. Bought 19 million doughnuts.

It doesn’t have to be cake: doughnuts can do. Ms. Maywati could have sent her private jet to New Delhi’s brand new Dunkin’ Donuts outlet to buy as many as four doughnuts for each Lucknow resident. The doughnuts – in varieties ranging from glazed to mango – cost 45 rupees each.

5. Paid salaries for Kingfisher pilots for five months.

Instead of spending public money on home improvements, Ms. Mayawati could’ve given Vijay Mallya a hand to clear salaries for employees of his debt-ridden airline. Salaries for pilots in India are around $6,500 a month and Kingfisher Airlines employs around 500 pilots. This means Ms. Mayawati’s $16 million could have significantly eased the airline’s cash-flow problems for several months.

6. Fed 1.27 million children for a whole year

A program organized by the Akshaya Patra Foundation says all they need to feed a child for a whole year are 675 rupees. Ms. Mayawati’s $16 million would have gone a long way.